There’s been a lot of talk about assessment since the announcement back goodness-knows-when about the scrapping of National Curriculum levels. However, to my mind, a vast amount of it – almost certainly the majority – has been not so much about assessment as about tracking.
Let me be clear at the outset that I think you need both. However, one of my major complaints about the current system of National Curriculum levels has been that its use as a tracking tool has long since superseded its purpose as an assessment tool.
It’s perhaps useful to re-visit some simple definitions of the two terms – simple enough to be taken from the Google definitions:
To assess: to evaluate or estimate the nature, ability, or quality of (someone/something).
To track: to follow the trail or movements of (someone/something).
Inevitably, the way that Ofsted works has meant that schools have been forced to use their…
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The Echo Chamber 